OER Websites and Repositories to Which Africa Contributes
This section provides links to African repositories and international repositories to which African Higher Education Institutions may contribute. This collection of OER and open access repositories was collected in relation to our themes, namely, Agriculture, Health, Teacher Education and Early Literacy Skills. There are also however repositories covering all subjects.
arXiv
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics.
Wikipedia
Most of Wikipedia's text and many of its images are co-licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA).
WikiAfrica is an international movement across the African continent and beyond that encourages individuals and organisations to create, expand and enhance online content on Wikipedia about Africa.
In addition, the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions has been running training for librarians on Wikipedia. The training has been funded by the Wikimedia Foundation.
OERu
The OERu makes higher education accessible to everyone. Coordinated by the OER Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit organisation, the OERu network of institutions offers free online courses for students worldwide. The OERu partners also provide affordable ways for learners to gain academic credit towards qualifications from recognised institutions.
Partners from Africa include:
- The University of Namibia;
- Botswana Open University;
- North-West University, South Africa; and
- The University of South Africa.
OpenUCT
OpenUCT is the open access institutional repository of the University of Cape Town (UCT). It makes available and digitally preserves the scholarly outputs produced at UCT, including theses and dissertations, journal articles, book chapters, technical and research reports, and open educational resources. These resources are organised into collections that are mapped against the university's organisational structure.
Early Learning Resource Network
The Early Learning Resource Network is an online platform designed to help governments and others working in education find and download open licensed children’s books and instructional materials for foundational literacy and numeracy programs.
The ELRN also offers easy access to a wide range of other materials, including practical guidance on book procurement, book design, and parent/caregiver resources. The ELRN is growing rapidly with more resources, books, and languages added every day.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but you do not need to belong to one of those projects to use media hosted here. The repository is created and maintained not by paid archivists, but by volunteers. The scope of Commons is set out on the project scope pages.
OpenLearn
OpenLearn is an Open University initiative offering free courses to the public. These courses are comprised of articles, educational packages including images and videos on a range of fields including Psychology,Sports and Health.
Merlot African Network
Merlot African Network (MAN) is a network of partnerships between African and US educational institutions affiliated with the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) and leading global eLearning providers with educational programs targeting Sub-Saharan Africa.
Health Education And Training (HEAT)
Health Education and Training (HEAT) Programme offers courses with the focus on rural community diseases, particularly those without health care. Their course's are structured specifically to meet these needs
Mindset Learn
Mindset Learn supports learners and teachers in formal schooling with a focus on Grades 10, 11 and 12 and the Maths, Sciences, Social Sciences and Finance clusters of subjects. All content is produced to the highest educational and production standards and is aligned with the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). Content is in video format and is supported by PDF notes and computer based interactive lessons.
Siyavula Open Textbooks
Siyavula is a South African website that offers quality, curriculum-aligned maths and science textbooks span Grades 4-12. You can read them online, or download them all totally for free. It urges learning through practising and offers books with quizzes and questions for learner engagement
Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA)
TESSA is a network of teachers and teacher educators stretching across Sub-Saharan Africa. At the heart of the network is a bank of open educational resources (OER), linked to the school curriculum, and designed to support teachers and teacher educators in developing active approaches to learning. The network is co-ordinated by The Open University, UK.